October 08, 2014

The following post was written by my sister, Paula. It recalls an often told family story. Paula, Brian, and I had a great childhood. Our family did not have any material wealth, but we had much more in terms of fun, laughter, and memories. Even as we have poked gentle fun at each other over the years love and smiles underscore the stories shared. I hope you enjoy this post.

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Did I ever tell you the story about jumping the utility ditch? One summer when I was about ten years old, I visited my grandparents for several weeks. They were selling their farm, and building a new home for retirement. We spent hours at the new place every day because my grandparents were doing as much as they could themselves. I remember painting molding, picking up rocks in the huge yard, and helping out as best I could. They kept me busy!

One of the things I loved to do every day was jump the utility ditch. It cut across their front yard on a diagonal from the lane to the house. It was wide and deep. Or at least it is in my 10-year old memory. It required utter feats of courage and physical ability to gracefully leap through the air to land on the other side. I had done it about a thousand times before my parents arrived with my brothers in tow. They had come to collect me and take me home.

As they arrived that day, I remember coming around the corner of the house. And much to my dismay, I saw that my two little brothers were poised to jump “the ditch.” My ditch! How dare they casually and carelessly attempt such a thing without instruction?! And so, ever the bossy big sister, I stopped them in their tracks. No matter that their feet were poised on the edge of the ditch to leap! “I need to show you how to do it!” I exclaimed. I proceeded to give them instruction. And then, I told them to watch me do it. I would show them how. Only then could they master it. And so, my brothers backed away to watch me demonstrate my amazing, graceful, gymnastic-like skills in ditch-jumping. My family would be talking about this leap for the rest of our lives! It was going to be awesome! Did I mention that I am not gymnastic-like or especially graceful by any stretch of the imagination?

Lo and behold. The next thing I knew, I was on all fours in the bottom of the ditch. I still don’t know how it happened. Frogs and other such things jumped every which way. Mud slopped up around my wrists. My face was splattered. My clothes were wet. And as I stood up with my grandmother’s old sweater on, the sweater sagged and drooped pathetically.

My mother helped me climb out. I wish I could say that everyone was generous and sympathetic, feeling sorry for this unfortunate calamity that had befallen me. But they just laughed. Out loud. And the harder they laughed, the harder I cried. Oh, the indignity. Oh, the wretchedness of being brought to your knees when you thought you would be flying through the air like someone on a flying trapeze. Life can be so . . . . cruel.

To make matters worse, my little brothers promptly began jumping back and forth over the ditch as if it was nothing. My mother took me back to the farm where she helped me climb out of the sweater of disgrace. And it has somehow become one of our favorite family stories. Even my children love this story. And I tell it on myself. Although surely, it’s still rather disgraceful, isn’t it?

I guess it reminds me of the proverb, “Pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall.” But even more importantly, it reminds me of grace. I was able, with my mother’s help, to get cleaned up. The mud was washed off, and even my grandmother’s sweater survived. Perhaps never the same, but it survived. I was able to move on and begin afresh . . . . even though my family will never let me forget it. And that’s really one of the most important parts of faith and God as far as I’m concerned. We may never forget our mistakes. In fact, we can learn from them. But best of all, we can trust in God’s words, “I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not see it?” With God, we can begin each day anew.

Thank God for new days, fresh starts, clean sweaters, and memories that make for laughter!

July 10, 2014

My pal, Stogie Robinson, and I make a near weekly telephone call where we catch up, discuss important life stuff, and then amble into a bit of general sports talk to wrap things up. He's a long suffering Philly sports fan although I remind him while it's been a long time for the Sixers, Flyers, and Eagles, the Phillies have been decent in recent years. But hey, if he wants to suffer I will let him. I like to remind Stogie that I am a life long Pittsburgh sports fan which means, recent Pirates teams excepted, we get to celebrate championships often enough to smooth over the rough patches.

That being said, we recently agreed that right now we are in the Annual American Summer Sports Drought until NFL and College Football gets rolling in a few months. Have you checked out a sports talk show lately? All these folks can talk about is where 3 or 4 NBA starts will sign for next season. It's bigger than the actual basketball season. Do I really care what the wife of some highly paid athlete tweeted last night and what it means? Come on, man! This is another reason I just cannot bring myself to watch professional basketball anymore. And baseball will not be relevant until late August which is when football becomes relevant, so sorry baseball. You lose. Again.

Sigh. So America...how about we all stop suffering with who is going to sign where and acting like anyone cares? And I already know unless you are a die hard baseball guy, like my brother in-law Dan, you are not really paying attention to any games this month. A casual glance at the Sunday standings tells you all you need to know. Let me tell you, there is some awesome stuff if you care to expand your horizons a bit.

That World Cup semi-final last night that ended in a 0-0 (or you can be cool and say Nil-Nil) tie until it was won with a shootout was not boring. It was 120 minutes of tension. Perfect tension. The Dutch spent all their key resources shutting down one guy, Messi, to the point they had no ability to try to score themselves. And then the guy who got shut down scores the first point in the shootout and the look on his face is the "We got this" look. Game over.

And then Stage 5 of the Tour de France yesterday was an instant classic. The Tour has 21 stages, but the first week is usually a number of easy days with sprint finishes and the hard stuff starts later. But this year started with two difficult days out of five and yesterday was off the charts. As a cycling fan, some of my favorite races are done early in the year and are called The Spring Classics or The Momuments. They are often raced in harsh weather conditions and winning one can make a career.

Paris-Roubaix is the Queen of The Classics. It is also referred to as The Hell of The North. Yesterdays Tour de France route was over much of the same route and after almost a week of racing in perfect weather, it rained all day. One of the difficult parts of the route are these sections of cobblestones, some of which date back to the Roman era. The are bone jarring in dry weather. In wet weather they are slippery and bone jarring and when mud creeps onto them from the farmlands the difficulty factor goes off the charts.

The defending champion crashed out of the race leading some to say the choice of routes was a bad idea from the race organizers. But nay, nay I say. Riders were so focused that the overall race speed was at the top end of what the pros ride. The peloton (the field) split apart. Unsure bike handlers had difficulty. We saw one guy overcook a turn and flip over the bike into farmland.

Some of the great bike handlers went fast and sure. The overall race leader, Vincenzo Nibali, had a day he may look back on as one of the finest in his career. This years overall champion will truly be able to say he was the best overall on different terrain and weather conditions.

This morning I went for a bike ride and had my own little Roubiax action. It rained a bit. I road over a short section of brick road. Hey, we don't have any cobbles around here. I caught a dirt and rock section between roads and then rolled down a paved section that was gator-backed broken asphalt. Yes, I had my own Walter Mitty moment. It was awesome being out there. Out there.

So I say take a peek at the world. Cheer the world. Get out there. Enjoy something different. Look at something different. Get caught up. You are welcome.

June 17, 2014

The sunlight on this building caught my attention while on a bike ride just after daybreak this morning. While I would have appreciated taking the photo with a better camera and lens setup, often the best camera is the one in your pocket. If you have a cell phone you likely have a camera with you all the time. All that is necessary is to stop and take the picture.

June 13, 2014

This photo is dated a month after I was born in 1963. My dad was a good man then and he is a good man now. I could say many things about him on this father's day weekend, but let's leave it that I am grateful to have him as my dad.

May 21, 2014

When our girls lived with us between college graduation and their time working in Kenya we made it a point to all cook Sunday dinner together. Schedules may have allowed us to miss each other a number of times during the week, but we all made it a point to be in the kitchen come late afternoon each Sunday.

Somewhere along the line we started lighting a Jesus candle on the kitchen countertop. We called it "Cooking with Jesus". The idea of Cooking with Jesus involves music, conversation, and laughter. It contains cooperate effort to prepare good food for a great meal. There is a distinct possibility of spontaneous dancing. Did I mention the good music?

There are hugs, tears, and lots of joy. And over the meal the stories of the past week were shared with time lingered over the high as well as low points. Later on dreams of the coming days are spoken. It is good. It is family. It still is family when we get together with our girls and now their men.

Last weekend My Girl and I stopped by a big international market north of Atlanta. I think we both had the same reaction when we turned a corner and spotted this wall of Jesus candles. It was something like, "Whoa, that is a whole lot of Cooking with Jesus. Yes, that is a lot of Jesus".

May 20, 2014

Over the weekend we attended a Crawfish Boil at the T&S Plantation (ok...Brewington home) in Roswell, GA. Featured items included trucked-in live crawfish along with their friend Chad to cook them up right as well as plenty of other tasty food, live music, good conversation, candles and a firepit after dark, laughter, beverages, kids running around, and kinship. I figure if you get any three of these together at one time it is a real good day. If you get all of these things together at one time...yep.